


Inside Waiting to Breathe

by sarken



Category: Real News RPF
Genre: Airports, Being There, Current TV Era, Gen, TSP Comment Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-19
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarken/pseuds/sarken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel welcomes Keith home from Tampa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inside Waiting to Breathe

At twenty after three, Rachel overtips the bartender and slides off her barstool. She runs her hand through her hair as she strolls toward baggage claim, where she stuffs her hands in her pockets and leans against the farthest wall.

She thinks she should feel nervous, maybe giddy, anything that isn't this sense of overwhelming boredom that has her head lolling against the wall and her eyes rolling upward. Her key ring is looped around her fingers when she pulls her hand out of her pocket to check the time, and she doesn't bother to put them back. Her arm drops to her side and she jangles her fistful of keys like a high school janitor.

She feels someone's eyes find her with a glare, and she gets so caught up in her embarrassment that she is surprised to look up and find a crush of travelers flooding into baggage claim.

That's when the nerves kick in, when her heart starts pounding and she remembers she hasn't spoken to Keith since hanging up on him fifty-six days ago. She starts scanning the crowd and worrying she got the flight number wrong, or he went to Tampa for a week and a half without checked baggage, or anything she can use to explain not seeing him, anything that doesn't involve him noticing and avoiding her.

She huffs out a frustrated breath and licks her lips. A bald man steps out of the way, and there Keith is.

There they both are, staring at each other like two deer in the headlights.

Rachel's keys fall out of her hand, and her entire world consists of the sound they make as they hit the floor. She doesn't hear travelers talking loudly into phones and at each other; she doesn't know Keith is closing the distance between them until his arms are crushing her and her fingers are digging into his shoulders and she is squeezing her eyes shut and saying, "Don't leave like that."


End file.
